Copyright: Its History and Its LawBowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
History
Copyright: Its History and Its Law
Bowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers)
Copyright -- History; Copyright -- United States -- History
The right "to translate into other languages or dialects" is
strengthened in the new American code by the addition of the phrase "or
to make any other version thereof," and the author is thus given
exclusive right and entire control as to translation of his original
work by himself or others, without specific reservation of rights except
as implied and included in the general copyright notice. The broad
phrase "make any other version thereof" may cover not only translation
into another language, but into another literary form as from prose into
poetry or _vice versa_. No case involving construction of this phrase
seems yet to have arisen to be decided by the courts; but the author of
a narrative poem, like Owen Meredith's "Lucile" or Tennyson's "Enoch
Arden," could probably prevent the transformation of his poetical work
into equivalent prose; and a novelist would have probably a like
protection in case of an attempt to duplicate or transform his story as
a narrative poem. This view is confirmed by the analogous specific
protection of the right to dramatize a work or convert a drama into
non-dramatic form.
{Sidenote: Translating term}
The exclusive right "to translate the copyrighted work into other
languages or dialects, or make any other version thereof, if it be a
literary work; to dramatize it if it be a non-dramatic work" are granted
by the act for the same period as the term of original copyright and the
renewal term, instead of for a shorter period, as ten years, as is the
case in certain foreign legislation. The right to translate or to
dramatize is separate from the right to copyright a translation or
dramatization, as is shown by the fact that a translation or
dramatization can be separately copyrighted for a term extending from
its own date of publication and therefore possibly beyond the copyright
term of the original work, though on the expiration of the primary
copyright any one else may make a translation or dramatization despite
the continuing existence of the copyright in the authorized translation
or dramatization. These subjects are more specifically discussed for
translations under the subject-matter of copyright and for
dramatizations under dramatic and musical copyright.
{Sidenote: Oral delivery}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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